A married man from Hindhead with "voyeuristic tendencies" has been jailed after he planted a spy camera in a toilets in Surrey to "obtain sexual gratification".

Timothy Garland, of London Road, was handed a 10-month prison sentence on Thursday (August 11) after 294,000 still images of people going to the toilet were discovered on his recording device.

The 36-year-old, who hung his head in shame through most of the hearing at Guildford Crown Court , installed the covert device in a pipe which was positioned in the corner of the lavatories across a nine day period in 2014.

Garland previously pleaded not guilty to one count of recording a person doing a private act but changed his plea two months before his trial to guilty.

During the sentencing, Oliver Docherty, prosecuting, said this incident showed ‘a significant degree of planning’.

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“That established the link between him and that phone and the device found.”

There was evidence of him buying spy cameras and his internet browsing history showed he had been accessing a website for ‘exhibitionism and voyeurism’.

On February 22 2015 he was arrested where he denied the offence. He was interviewed again on August 11 2015 and gave ‘no comment’.

Several impact statements from victims, many of whom were sitting in court, were read out with most of them describing suffering from physical and mental symptoms including, stress and ‘heightened levels’ of anxiety.

Many said they had to have counselling and one said: “Not a single day has gone by since this happened that I have not thought about it.”

One victim took to the witness box, telling the defendant she felt ‘completely violated’.

Defending the father-of one was Rupert Hallowes, who said his client’s ‘voyeuristic inclinations’ stemmed back to when he was at university where he saw two people having sex in the grounds.

He said that his ‘voyeuristic tendencies’ had been developing over the course of many years.

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Mr Hallowes said: “If this defendant was in any doubt whatsoever as to the impact of his selfish and deviant offending a couple of years ago, if there was any doubt at all, that has been firmly put to bed by him sitting in that dock and having to hear from various letters read out.

“Until about six weeks ago this defendant was in complete denial as to his offending behaviour and also to the deviant tendencies that he has never previously, in his 36 years, shared with anyone.

“He described his own behaviour and it was as ‘sick’.”

Mr Hallowes concurred that the custodial threshold had been passed but asked the judge to give Garland a suspended sentence or community order where he could get help.

However, judge Neil Stewart told Garland he had to consider whether he really did feel remorseful by changing his plea or whether it was to ‘cut his losses’.

Handing him his 10-month sentence he said: “This is not simply to give the victims satisfaction, it’s because the public protection at large requires that the sentencing reflects the gravity of the offending.”